Crowds are the worst. Like, terrible to deal with. Add on sales or the threat of not getting the perfect gift (at the perfect price), and the mobs get even angrier. Which, in turn, makes me angrier. It’s also why, this holiday season, I’ll be doing much of my shopping online via Amazon (why yes I’ll take household goods, gifts, and non-perishable snacks all in the same delivery). Or at Orschlens, that place has everything … minus the people. It’s usually full of farmer’s who are nice and open the door for short women and when I say “full” I mean maybe there is five to nine, depending on the time of day. Anyway, I hate crowds and encourage others to do the same. This holiday season, keep yourself around the people you actually want to be around by: Saying No It’s ok to “let people down.” In fact, as long as you’re up-front […]

This week I found out one of my favorite email columnists was quitting her job. Or rather, leaving her keyboard for one that’s greener. Which just means she’s writing for something/one different now. Her name is Emily AKA Prudie, and I have been reading her column on Slate for years. It’s a setup where people write in about their strange and unusual problems – sometimes simply to complain. And she puts most of them in their place – sometimes letting writers know they’re right, other times pointing out how wrong they are. It’s an incredible form of entertainment. No, I didn’t agree with her 100% of the time, and no I’m not really over how she ignored my email asking whether or not it was ok to give a single (bigger) gift for a shower and wedding. But that doesn’t mean I wont miss her. In reading this announcement, I […]

I’m “one of those people” who make the bed. Which really just means I make the bed. It’s an easy chore, and it makes me feel better; it’s how I start the day. Nothing can be done (except actually getting out of bed) until it’s made. That’s just logic. How else are you going to eat breakfast? Or put on your robe? Or start the pot of tea or coffee – depending on what hour the alarm went off? With unmade sheets? That sounds physically impossible. Not even a Marvel character could pull of that stunt. Then again, there are people who don’t do this. Instead of starting their day tidy, they leave their covers disheveled and messy – a precursor to having a terrible if you ask me. (They rarely do.) It fact, just thinking about unmade beds makes me want to puke. If you want to go lay […]

Someone once told me that being 28 is the worst age they’d ever been. That it was young enough no one took them seriously, but old enough to still sound old. And now that I’ve been every age to the one I am now, which is, you guessed it, 28, I’m going to have to agree. My number of years old is terrible. Why? Because it’s right in the middle of everything – where I’m not yet experienced enough to gain respect for being alive, nor am I young enough to be given newb treatment. Things are expected of me, and the ability to give advice is not one of them. That’s still beyond my years … not that should be confused with responsibilities. Which are coming in hot. People who are younger than me think I’m reaching dino status. And those older wonder why I don’t have four kids […]

Sometimes when I wake up, there is dog poop in the yard. Most days there is not. But on the calendar days that the dog(s) do strike, they ensure their contribution is very large and very smelly. There are enough suspects around that I can’t pinpoint the perp. There’s the yellow lab from two doors down who is sisters with the cat, the roamer, Bullwinkle, who sometimes naps out back, the two tennis ball chasers from across the street, and the other yellow one who is usually with his Mom … but never listens to her. All of these dogs exist, without leashes, throughout my neighborhood. Apparently, it’s a new initiative that promotes a cage-free lifestyle and defecating at one’s leisure. So long as it’s not in your own yard. Because why would you smell up grass when you can take care of business downwind? It’s likely one of the […]

It’s time I put my foot down. In the hardest, announciest way I know how. #ThatFootisMe If I had an amount of money for every time I was talked down to, from having lady parts, I’d be retired and rich.* As if I, a woman, can’t function in life as efficiently as a man. That a Y chromosome is needed to make me complete, or safe, or financially stable, or whatever else it is about the male form that requires us gals to adhere ourselves to their existence. Even though I air up my own tires and take out my own trash, you know, when my roommate’s boyfriend hasn’t already done it. Not everyone follows this mantra – I’ll give you that – but a certain percentage of the population is still out there. Querying us with pity in their eyes and sexism in their hearts. Generally, it comes […]

Last week I got pulled over. On account of not having my proper tags on my car. It’d been two entire weeks since the new license place had been thrown haphazardly into my trunk. And since stashing Christmas shopping packages a few days prior, I’d forgotten completely about it. I, had, of course asked my dad to do it. Not because I didn’t know how or couldn’t. It was just cold and I didn’t want to. Then forgot. The task slipped Dad, AKA Wonk’s mind too, and there the tag sat. Any word on when the Winchester brothers are getting an updated tag style? You KNOW they can’t get pulled over. Until I got pulled over. By the nicest cop in the whole entire world. He was real gentle about it, didn’t use his sirens and introduced himself all nice. Not like in a grandpa way on account of him […]